SMEs that are innovation in terms of sustainable production and marketisation, and

key players from government and non-government organisations covering a wide range of aspects related to sustainable land use, including policy, certification schemes, industry standards, consumption patterns, and conservation.

COUPLED believes that only together can we provide the expertise needed to understand and govern telecoupled land systems towards sustainability.

Meet the Supervisors

Jonas Østergaard Nielsen

Jonas Ø. Nielsen is Professor at Humboldt-Universität’s Department of Geography and at IRI THESys where he leads a research group. Together with his team he is investigating the emerging framework of telecoupling in land use science considering how distal environmental, social, political and economic drivers of change influence land-use changes in northern Laos and Burkina Faso. Jonas’ research is also concerned with human dimensions of global climate change, land-use change and how these issues open up for explorations around global-local interactions in an increasing connected world.

Tobias Kuemmerle

Tobias Kuemmerle is a professor for biogeography and conservation biology at the Geography Department at Humboldt-University Berlin. The overarching goal of his research is to improve our understanding of where and why land use changes, how that affects species’ habitats and populations, and what characterizes sustainable land systems that balance biodiversity conservation and humanity’s resource needs. He uses tools from land use science, landscape ecology, conservation biology, and biogeography to address these issues at broad geographic scales.

Thilde Bech Bruun

Thilde Bech Bruun is Associated Professor at Department of Geosciences and Natural Resource Management, Section of Geography, University of Copenhagen. Her research is focused on land use transitions, natural resource management, food security and climate change adaptation and mitigation in the Global South. She is particularly interested in understanding causes of land use changes and how they affect socio-economic and environmental systems. Her recent research has focused on effects of land use changes on carbon storage in soil and vegetation, on soil fertility management in small scale farming systems and on identifying sustainable intensification pathways for these systems.

Edward Challies

Edward Challies is a human geographer and interdisciplinary governance researcher. He is Senior Lecturer in Water Policy and management at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand, and Adjunct Senior Research Associate with the Institute of Sustainability Governance at Leuphana University of Lüneburg in Germany. He is currently working on environmental governance in water resources management, agri-food systems, and forest carbon, and is focused on understanding these fields through globally telecoupled systems and in the context of globalisation. His research is centrally concerned with th eopportunities and pitfalls presented by novel modes of governance (and especially by participatory and collaborative governance approaches), and their social and environmental implications across different scales.

Esteve Corbera

Esteve Corbera is a Senior Researcher at the Institute of Environmental Science and Technology, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. He studies human relationships with nature, and the impact of social, policy and environmental change on resource governance. His research main focus is the analysis of climate change mitigation/adaptation and biodiversity conservation programs, including climate-policy and biodiversity conservation related instruments, such as Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+) and carbon offset projects, as well as biofuels, and how these impact livelihoods in the global South and transform institutions and people’s behaviour.

Helmut Haberl

Helmut Haberl is director of the Institute of Social Ecology Vienna, Alpen-Adria Universität, Austria. He works on both theoretical and empirical aspects of society-nature interrelations and sustainable development – a research field he considers to be the core focus of human ecology. In recent years he has led several research projects on the relation between socioeconomic metabolism and land-use change. His research interests include the human appropriation of net primary production (HANPP), ecological footprinting, societal energy metabolism and its relation to sustainable development, and other aspects of societal energy use.

Andreas Heinimann

Andreas Heinimann is an Associated Director for Regional Cooperation of the Center for Development and Environment (CDE) of the University of Bern, and a senior lecturer at the Institute of Geography of the University of Bern responsible for the field of Geoprocessing. He is interested in inter- and transdisciplinary research in the field of land system science. Andreas focuses on detecting and understanding the impacts of multiple claim from different levels on land use and the respective consequences on different socio-ecological systems involved. Working since 20 years in Southeast Asia (whereof 6 years based on Laos) and East Africa, he has gained a deep understanding of the respective socio-political contexts. By leading large long-term research and development programs in Laos and Myanmar, he is interested in building and strengthening science-policy-society interfaces towards a more engaged and transformative science for sustainable development.

Catharina Plummer

TFT is a global non-profit organization that helps companies and communities deliver responsible products. TFT act on the ground in forests, farms and factories to help create products that respect the environment and improve people’s lives. With more than 16 locations and 260 employees, TFT works with members, partners and projects across global supply chains. Catharina oversees global finance and the HR department. Cat has nearly 25 years’ experience working in the financial sector, and has held various management positions at some of the world’s leading companies.

Nynke Schulp

Nynke Schulp is an Assistant Professor in ecosystem services at the at the Department of Environmental Geography, VU University Amsterdam. She is specialized in analyzing societal demand for ecosystem services in relation to the supply by the landscape. Her research focuses on cultural landscapes with a strong role for agriculture. She developed a set of spatial models for mapping ecosystem services and applied these in science and policy support.

Eric Lambin

Eric Lambin, a geographer and environmental scientist, divides his time between the Université catholique de Louvain (Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium) and Stanford University, were he occupies the Ishiyama Provostial Professorship at the School of Earth, Energy & Environmental Sciences and the Woods Institute for the Environment. His research tries to better understand patterns, causes, and impacts of land use changes in different parts of the world. He was Chair of the international scientific project Land Use and Land Cover Change (LUCC) from 1999 to 2005. He also contributed to the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment. He was awarded the 2009 Francqui Prize, the 2014 Volvo Environment Prize and is Foreign Associate at the U.S. National Academy of Sciences. His current research tries to understand how economic globalization affects global land use, and how private and public regulations of land use interact to promote more sustainable land use practices.

Ole Mertz

Ole Mertz is professor of Human Geography, Environment and Society in Developing Countries Research Group. Ole’s research and teaching responsibilities are focused on global environmental change, land use transitions and food security in the Global South. Specifically, he has worked for two decades on the dynamics of forest-agriculture frontiers looking at how changes in land use affect socio-economic and environmental systems. He also works with climate change adaptation and mitigation and has a general interest in the interface between development, environmental management and land use change.

Peter Messerli

Peter Messerli is professor for Sustainable Development at the University of Bern, Switzerland, and the director of the Centre for Development and Environment (CDE). As a land system scientist and human geographer his research interests lie in the sustainable development of social-ecological systems in Africa and Asia. He focuses on increasingly globalized and competing claims on land, rural transformation processes, and spatial manifestations of their outcomes in the Global South. Peter Messerli has lived and worked more than 10 years in Madagascar and Laos directing large-scale research projects focusing on inter- and transdisciplinarity. He has an extensive experience in science-policy interactions from the local to the global level. Peter Messerli is also the co-chair of Future Earth’s Global Land Programme (GLP) and occupies many functions in advising and guiding governmental, scientific, and civil-society organisations related to sustainable development.

Patrick Meyfroidt

Patrick Meyfroidt is a researcher at Université catholique de Louvain (UCL) in Belgium. He holds a PhD in geography (2009) and a degree in sociology from UCL. His main research interests are centered on the dynamics of land systems, including the role of globalization and distant linkages in land use change, forest transitions, cross-scale analyses of land system changes and social-ecological feedbacks from environmental change on perceptions and behaviors. He has an ERC project exploring the processes that condition and shape the emergence of agricultural frontiers in Southern Africa.

Jens Newig

Jens Newig is full professor of Governance and Sustainability at Leuphana University Lüneburg. A geo-ecologist by training with a doctoral degree in Law and a Habilitation in political science and systems science, Jens is now engaging in inter- and transdisdisciplinary governance research. His reseach interests include societal transitions to sustainability; environmental politics, policy and governance for sustainable development and participatory governance and collaborative decision processes.

Thomas Kastner

Co-Supervisor at Senckenberg Biodiversity and Climate Research Centre for ESR 4

Senior Scientist at the Senckenberg Biodiversity and Climate Research Centre (SBiK-F) and researcher at the Institute of Social Ecology in Vienna. His main areas of research are systemic relations between biomass use, international trade, land use change and species decline; long-term changes in land use systems and in the use of land-based resources; impacts on dietary patterns on land demand and on biodiversity; the role of land use in climate-change mitigation.

Beatriz Rodriguez Labajos

Beatriz Rodriguez Labajos is a Senior Researcher at the Institute of Environmental Science and Technology, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Her research interests are the socioeconomic dimensions of biodiversity, environmental justice, and ecosystem service assessment. Her field experience includes regions of Europe, Latin America, and South East Asia. Her publications focus on biodiversity conservation, social perception of invasive species, environmental conflicts, water management and agro-ecosystems.

Henry King

Dr Henry King is Science and Technology Leader for Sustainability within Unilever, a fast moving consumer goods companies with brands such as Persil, Flora, Dove, PG Tips and Ben & Jerry’s. His current areas of responsibility include the integration of life cycle based thinking within the company as part of Unilever’s Sustainable Living Plan and leading on climate change issues. He leads the company’s activities in environmental impact assessment including research on GHG emissions associated with land use and water footprinting.

Peter Verburg

Peter Verburg is an interdisciplinary geographer who is a Full Professor and Department Head of the Department of Spatial Analysis and Decision Support at the Institute for Environmental Studies, VU University Amsterdam. He has established a leading position in the field of land use analysis and modelling. He is an expert in the analysis of human-environment systems through ecosystem-service mapping and quantification, econometrics, scenario analysis and multifunctional land-use assessment. The focus of his work is in improving the understanding of human-environment systems for sustainability solutions, especially connected to the development of decision-support tools.

The Advisory Board

Ruth deFries

Columbia University, New York

Ruth DeFries is a professor of ecology and sustainable development at Columbia University in New York. She uses images from satellites and field surveys to examine how the world’s demands for food and other resources are changing land use throughout the tropics. Her research quantifies how these land use changes affect climate, biodiversity and other ecosystem services, as well as human development. She has also developed innovate education programs in sustainable development.

DeFries was elected as a member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, one of the country’s highest scientific honors, received a MacArthur “genius” award, and is the recipient of many other honors for her scientific research. In addition to over 100 scientific papers, she is committed to communicating the nuances and complexities of sustainable development to popular audiences, most recently through her book “The Big Ratchet: How Humanity Thrives in the Face of Natural Crisis.”

Jianguo Liu

Center for Systems Integration and Sustainability, Michigan State University

A human-environment scientist and sustainability scholar, Jianguo “Jack” Liu holds the Rachel Carson Chair in Sustainability, is University Distinguished Professor of fisheries and wildlife at Michigan State University and serves as director of the Center for Systems Integration and Sustainability.

Liu takes a holistic approach to addressing complex human-environmental challenges through systems integration, most recently by applying and refining the telecoupling framework. His work has been published in journals such as Nature and Science and has been widely covered by the international news media.

Liu has served on various international and national committees and panels. He is a member of the Board of Reviewing Editors for Science and is a coordinating lead author of the global assessment of biodiversity and ecosystem services organized by the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services.

In recognition of his efforts and achievements in research, teaching, and service, Liu has received many awards, such as being elected to the American Philosophical Society, named a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), and has received the Guggenheim Fellowship Award, the CAREER Award from the National Science Foundation, the Distinguished Service Award from US-IALE and the Sustainability Science Award and the Aldo Leopold Leadership Fellowship from the Ecological Society of America.

Marie Lavialle-Piot

Cargill, Incorporate

Marie Lavialle-Piot joined Cargill in October 2011. She is currently the sustainability manager for the Cargill Global Edible Oils Solution business based in Amsterdam/Schiphol and is responsible for the developing and executing the sustainability strategy for the tropical and liquid oils business.

She previously held a position of sustainability project manager with Cargill’s Cocoa and Chocolate business also based in Amsterdam/Schipol. She holds a Master’s degree from Ecole Superieure d’Agriculture (Angers, France) in agribusiness and trading of food commodities. She has vast knowledge in food sustainability related to tropical commodities and has global experience with a multitude of stakeholders.

Michael Taylor

International Land Coalition

Michael Taylor is the Director of the global secretariat of the International Land Coalition, hosted by IFAD in Rome. He is a citizen of Botswana, and has a PhD in Social Anthropology. The International Land Coalition is a global alliance of over 200 multilateral and civil society organizations working together to realise land governance for and with people at the country level, responding to the needs and protecting the rights of those who live on and from the land.

Hallie Eakin

Arizona State University, Tempe

Dr. Hallie Eakin is an Associate Professor in Sustainability Science with the School of Sustainability, Arizona State University. Her research focuses on efforts to create adaptive, resilient and sustainable societies in face of global environmental and socioeconomic change. She has address the concept of telecoupling in relation to vulnerability and adaptation in globalized food systems, and in terms of the implications of telecoupling for food system governance. Currently she is coordinating an international initiative exploring the sustainability and resilience implications of social-hydrological risk in Mexico City (http://megadapt.weebly.com). Dr. Eakin recent work also explores vulnerability and adaptation in the Mexican maize and coffee sectors, adaptive capacity and poverty linkages in N.E. Brazil and the development of “transformation laboratories” to address sustainability challenges in Xochimilco, Mexico.

Thomas Kastner

Senckenberg Biodiversity and Climate Research Centre

Senior Scientist at the Senckenberg Biodiversity and Climate Research Centre (SBiK-F) and researcher at the Institute of Social Ecology in Vienna. His main areas of research are systemic relations between biomass use, international trade, land use change and species decline; long-term changes in land use systems and in the use of land-based resources; impacts on dietary patterns on land demand and on biodiversity; the role of land use in climate-change mitigation.

COWI Tanzania Ltd.

COWI is a consulting group that creates value for customers, people and society through a unique 360° approach. Based on its world-class competencies within engineering, economics and environmental science, COWI tackles challenges from many vantage points to create coherent solutions for customers. With offices all over the world, COWI combines global presence with local knowledge to take on projects anywhere in the world – no matter how large or small. COWI is involved in more than 14,000 projects, has more than 85 years experience in the business, and more than 6,600 employees.

European Landowners’ Organization (ELO)

ELO is federation of over 60 member organizations from throughout Europe involved in activities such as farming and agriculture, forestry and cork, wine production, hunting and fishing as well as water and waste treatment. ELO is committed to protecting property rights, whilst promoting a sustainable and prosperous countryside and increasing awareness relating to environmental and agricultural issues. Its ability to do all of this assures ELO its unique position among the NGOs in the agricultural, environmental and rural activities’ sectors.

Fairtrade International (FLO)

Fairtrade is an alternative approach to conventional trade based on a partnership between producers and traders, businesses and consumers. The international Fairtrade system – made up of Fairtrade International and its member organizations – represents the world’s largest and most recognized fair trade system.

German Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, Building and Nuclear Safety

The Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, Building and Nuclear Safety (BMUB) is responsible for a range of government policies which are reflected in the name of the ministry itself. For more than 30 years the Ministry has worked to protect the public from environmental toxins and radiation and establish an intelligent and efficient use of raw materials; it has advanced climate action and promoted a use of natural resources that conserves biodiversity and secures habitats.

Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO)

The RSPO is a not-for-profit that unites stakeholders from the 7 sectors of the palm oil industry: oil palm producers, processors or traders, consumer goods manufacturers, retailers, banks/investors, and environmental and social non-governmental organisations (NGOs), to develop and implement global standards for sustainable palm oil. The RSPO has developed a set of environmental and social criteria which companies must comply with in order to produce Certified Sustainable Palm Oil (CSPO). When they are properly applied, these criteria can help to minimize the negative impact of palm oil cultivation on the environment and communities in palm oil-producing regions. The RSPO has more than 3,000 members worldwide who represent all links along the palm oil supply chain. They have committed to produce, source and/or use sustainable palm oil certified by the RSPO.

Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI)

The Stockholm Environment Institute is an international non-profit research organization that has worked with environment and development issues from local to global policy levels for a quarter of a century. SEI works to shift policy and practice towards sustainability.

The World Bank

The World Bank Group is one of the world’s largest sources of funding and knowledge for developing countries. Its five institutions share a commitment to reducing poverty, increasing shared prosperity, and promoting sustainable development. With 189 member countries, staff from more 170 countries, and offices in over 130 locations, the World Bank Group is a unique global partnership: five institutions working for sustainable solutions that reduce poverty and build shared prosperity in developing countries.

The United Nations Environment Programme World Conservation Monitoring Centre (UNEP-WCMC)

The United Nations Environment Programme World Conservation Monitoring Centre (UNEP-WCMC) works with scientists and policy makers worldwide to place biodiversity at the heart of environment and development decision-making to enable enlightened choices for people and the planet. Our 100-strong international team are recognised leaders in their field and have unrivalled understanding of the institutional landscape surrounding biodiversity policy and ecosystem management. Based in Cambridge, UK, UNEP-WCMC is a collaboration between UN Environment and the UK charity, WCMC.